


Such Things Regarding Eridan Ampora

by MacaroniSwirls



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2012-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:02:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MacaroniSwirls/pseuds/MacaroniSwirls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I write too much about this dirty fishster, so this story will basically be a compilation of drabbles I write regarding Eridan Ampora. Drabble 4:. I accidentally deleted the third chapter like a huge idiot, and thus am now reposting it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ad Infinitum

**Author's Note:**

> This is why I shouldn't write right after watching Madoka Magica. Might be somewhat confusing?
> 
> "In Which The Prince of Hope reiterates a timeline in order to make it end in Hope, but fails horribly."

The first time he had played the game, it had been surprising. The game had turned their world into shatters, but hey, he was the Prince of Hope.

And Hope would always be in the world, so, he thought, he could never really die.

He remembers holding hands with Fef before Bec Noir came to the asteroid. They had shared the smile, and then the whole world erupted into green fire.

Still, he was the Prince of Hope, it was his domain. And in the smile, he liked to think that he had shared a promise to save her, save all his friends, and make this all work out.

Nothing was out of his domain, as long as it brought hope.

And that was the moment that the cycle began.

• * * *

The third time, he had a vague memory of the game. He had lived his life with a strange foreboding that something bad was going to happen, but he never knew exactly what.

He hated how it seemed to affect all of his decisions; for example, the moment when he was sitting with Fef, and there was the choice between red and white, and he was ready to kiss her and-

Somewhere, sometime, he wasn’t sure when, he had promised to protect her.

And that was the pale romance.

He kept it up to the end, even when Feferi was dead and when he had walked towards the dangerous green with Karkat. The thunder cracked the sky, and when they died, it had been a death between comrades.

Eridan felt time rewind when he had died.

He was the Prince of Hope, and it was his job to bring hope.

• * * *  
Eventually he was remembering clearer images.

-Nepeta was clinging to his arm, looking towards a matespirit to protect her, but Gamzee had gone insane, and he was too busy looking for Feferi because he had to protect her too, and….

Well, eventually he found the body, and the clown, and that was when he died and the screaming oh god the-

-black liquid was falling from the sky, and the Black King was giving the Great Glub, and his ears were in pain and he watched his comrades fall, and the black liquid was growing and

Wasn’t it ironic that a sea dweller had died by drowning? Feferi had-

-It was the first time he had seen Aradia as a robot, and Eridan wasn’t sure what to think when this had started becoming a common part of the game.

Yet when she exploded, part of him was screaming that he didn’t even get to die in a just way, it was by a piece of metal stuck jagged in the central vascular pump, and purple was-

The memories would never stop.

• * * *  
He had lost track of the amount of cycles he had gone through when he started realizing that this wasn’t the first time he had seen things. It got to the point where everything was repetition, and sometimes he found a new part to go through, and sometimes he inwardly screamed when he missed reliving a perfect memory.

It seemed to be around the same time that people had started calling him an overdramatic tool, but really, how could run relive the same memories over and over again and not go insane? Not go insane over viewing the same deaths and the same tragedies? How can one not scream?

Eridan was the Prince of Hope. These endless cycles, eventually one would come out right, that was why he was doing this.

These endless streams powered by hope.  
• * * *

Eridan learned about God Tiers early, and when he flew up, wings of an angel and pure as snow, he had been happy.

It was going to go right this time, he thought, the white lightning extending from his hands and the angels heeding his call.

He had died when Bec Noir clawed his innards out.  
• * *  
He wasn’t sure when the hate began, but eventually, he wanted everything that wasn’t below the sea to die.

When he saw Feferi, the memories that she bought up were sweet – a kiss before the final death, one last hug, he just wanted to protect her, he just wanted to protect her.

But the others, the others!

Like Karkat-

Fleeting memories of a past reiteration, a sickle raised, a scream (“ALL YOU HIGHBLOODS HAVE GONE MOTHERFUCKING INSANE! GAMZEE WENT OFF HIS SOPOR, FEFERI’S GONE CATATONIC, EQUIUS WENT HIVESHIT MAGGOTS WHEN NEPETA DIED, AND VRISKA WAS ALREADY PSYCHO, HOW CAN I TRUST YOU TO NOT DO THAT? HOW!?”

And the sickle had gone through his chest, and that was how he died that time around.

There was one for everyone-

Equius had no moirail, he had gone crazy, but Eridan had still been a highblood, and Equius had felt it his duty to protect him. Eridan had died in a bone-crushing embrace.

Aradia’s circuits had broken, and there isn’t much you can do to protect yourself when a time traveling robot is out for your guts.

Kanaya had killed him while screaming that he had been supposed to bring Hope, and he had never done that, he had just sat around, he had just done nothing-

Tavros had stabbed him in the back in the most literal manner possible. When a troll finds you a big enough threat, even a troll like Tavros, they will do anything to kill you.

The Prince of Hope shouldn’t be genocidal.

But hey, what can you do?  
• * *  
At some point, Eridan had started to snap.

He tried not to, he tried so hard to be the Prince of Hope. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to, it just got to the point where the memories would overpile his sanity, enough memories to fill lifespans, memories that could fill an infinity of time.

-he had made it a habit to reach God Tier, back when he thought it was actually make a difference. He had died in a heroic way the first time, trying to stop Gamzee, but in the end his head was smashed in and-

-eventually times came when he started dying in a just way, when Terezi declared him guilty of murder and she took her-

-sometimes he stopped, when he realized that even as God Tier people died, when he realized he was tired of being Prince of Hope-

And when these memories overflowed him, flooded his memories, he would snap back and see something dead in front of him.

Feferi stared, mouth agape, staring between him and the dead body of Vriska lying on the floor.

Eridan just now noticed the blue blood dripping from his hands.  
• * *  
In later timestreams, he had taken the hobby of expressing his hatred of everything to everybody.

People considered him a tool, but at least yelling out his hatred to the heavens kept him from killing everyone.

He tried to tell himself that he was still the Prince of Hope, that even the Prince of Hope can be genocidal.

And then he realized that the Prince of Hope had lost of hope.  
• * *  
This was going to be the final time. He was going to lose his title, and then this cycle could end. He would never have to repeat life.

You can’t repeat stuff for the sake of Hope if you no longer care about it.

See, he decided, he had been doing it wrong this whole time. He wasn’t supposed to bring hope, he was supposed to destroy it.

When he killed Feferi, when he had broken his original promise, when Kanaya lay on the floor, when he had decided to join Bec Noir, when Kanaya had sawed him in half-

When he had died in the most pathetic way possible

He had been smiling.  
• * *  
All the other grubs only stared as he entered the world screaming.


	2. Eridan Snaps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eridan's thoughts as he enters the core and proceeds to kill two people.

I write about Eridan enough SO HERE’S HIM WHEN HE FLIPS OUT AND KILLS TWO PEOPLE  
\-----

The way you had thought about it made you think you had a kind of freedom coming your way. It wasn’t like you’d wanted to kill the-

Okay, you had. You’d wanted to see guts spilling across the floor and heads speaking words of blood and their bones being smashed to dust while they were still alive but the thing is, is that you aren’t stupid. You know about the fine line between wanting something and actually doing it. It all goes perfectly in your mind, but apply it to reality, and it all goes wrong.

You’d been dumb enough to try it once, trying to cross from the white zone into the red zone with Feferi, but you can’t even say you got moirail-zoned because you just got rejected completely.

It’s funny how that happens.

Like when you walked into the core, planning to sweep Feferi away – maybe not on her feet, but to somewhere safe- and showing Sollux a thing or two. Instead, you ended up shooting Sollux with science beams into the wall where blood splattered.

It was funny how much noble it seemed when it was all going on in your mind. When it actually happened, you just kind of gaped there in shock and you turned and saw Feferi glaring at you with teeth and trident armed, and-

And of course, you just instantly think about what your idols would’ve down. Those great kings and conquerors and kings and warriors that you’d read about since you were barely out of grubhood. The great warriors who’d never backed down from a challenge and who never ran, and their stories reverberated in your head – you weren’t going to run, you weren’t going to let them have a chance to make you fall.

And it was instinct, when you shot her down, because it was what the great rulers of ancient Alternia would’ve done. It was what you were supposed to do if you wanted to follow their footsteps.

And you look around and there are these mouths and eyes staring in blank amazement. See how Eridan Ampora, that lonely little sap that nobody took seriously, see how he finally snapped? See how he becomes dangerous now that he’s got some bite to go with his bark?

And you hadn’t snapped until then. Beforehand, you’d simply been Eridan Ampora, lonely kid filled with emocean. You were a joke, and nobody bothered to take the joke seriously until it walked up and killed somebody, and that’s what did it. That's what ended up bending your mind until one hardly recognized it.

You had to kill somebody to even to get them to do that.

You had to get up and freaking kill somebody.

And that’s when you start to think. It’s the kind of thinking that happens in a split second. You think about how nobody took you seriously, and hey, nobody took your genocide seriously until-

Until, hopesplode! There goes the matriorb. There goes the hope for the species. There goes all future lowbloods that might’ve otherwise been born.

And you think, that maybe you don’t mind anymore. You shoot lightning from your wand, bzzzaap, and she collapses on the floor, dead.

You abscond. You left Karkat as a survivior, you tell yourself, someone to tell the rest about your dark deeds so that they’d remain throughout was other history was left. Also, he talked to you. That wasn’t the reason you left him alive, though.

You tell yourself this.

You want to vomit.


	3. Fleeting Memories like Fleeting Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dumb Eridan death fic is a good thing to write at 2 AM, right?
> 
> Also look at this abuse of dash marks. I should be jailed.

Two lost children stand on an island, scrubbing the saltwater out of each other's wounds, and they're under the wonderful imposing shadow shielding them from the horrible imposing sun, and-

And there is so much blood gushing out of you right now, chainsawed organs and chainsawed life and chainsawed hope and-

You try to capture memories in your hands, the last fleeting pulses of your synapses, and you thought you could sketch them into your being gently, like an artist on a canvas, but instead they burn like battery acid-

There are the eyes of the adoptee of the first lusus you killed, and her tears are brimming with a kind or rich yellow, and it's okay, for she is a lowblood, and when you see the same tears from a different reaction, this time pink instead of mustard, it's okay, because she doesn't know how much you're helping her, how much she'll grow to love you-

Angels scream above you, and it's in this simple chaos that you find the niche, in the screaming and ending of life and mercy, and it brings a kind of hope, for you remember you are a highblood, a killer, and that has always gotten you far, always-

A high keening fills the air, and you realize it's the sound of your own screams, the final gasps of life clawing through your throat, and you wand is snapped next to you, and-

Feferi's dead body lies in front of you, and you should feel a wash of guilt, but instead you feel powerful, because now you lie atop the hemospectrum, now you rule over all and now you shall finally be admired, and you will-

You remember when you first met her, and you were barely not a grub and she was barely not a mess, and she just smiled at you and told you that sea trolls don't belong on water, and to get in before you choked on a shell, and you had smiled, smiled so hard-

Kanaya smiles at you, and hands you the white wand, and you convince yourself it isn't a joke, that this isn't some charade for the Rose human,and that when she places crackling white energy in your hands, it's because of you, and you alone, and nobody will ever stand in your way-

It's only when you walk down the empty hallways of the asteroid that you begin to feel guilt, and pink and green and yellow create a horribly cacophony of rainbow on your clothes, and try as you might, it's embedded, a part of your being, and never have you honestly doubted yourself so much as you have now, because you realize-

You hold the wand out, and Virgo and Pisces and Gemini prove to be obstacles, but a strong enough light can drown out even the brightest stars, so you hold it out, and you-

The last thing you see before you finally die is her face, and she is looking at you, skin ablaze with power, and your blood is all over her, and the last thing you see is-

-the glow of white power is all you see before you die-

-the glow of white power is the one thing you did that ever truly mattered in the long run, and look where that bought you-

You wake up, and your eyes are milky white, and as you sit in your dream bubble, you finally realize you are alone.


	4. Angels

Look, it’s only murder. He could totally do this. It’s only ripping out somebody’s central vascular system.

It’s only watching their last, dying wheezes of pain and seeing their technicolor blood squirt out like some sick fountain. You’re supposed to snap their horns and take them as trophies. He reached out and hesitantly grasped it. It buckled, then broke, and lodged itself in the skull of the lowblood.

What kind of Prince of Hope is this, he’s stopped. One can’t consider themselves amongst the wrathful angels if they can’t even take a trophy of their first murder. And we thought we had a highblood here.

Look at him, he’s shaking. As angelic denizens we got to watch our player, but we really couldn’t think of anything we could do to help this one. At least he won’t drown in our canals – if he’s going to die, it’s not going to be something pathetic like being unable to swim.

He’s walking away, and god, he’s shaking. How pathetic.

We looked a bit through the timeline, and he hasn’t even completely stopped shaking by the end of the game. Sure, there’s a pretty good period in between the beginning and the end where he’s able to murder without a problem, but he got to doing it at the end again.

Look at him, killing a couple friends and he’s shaking. A bit of pink on his hands and he’s shaking. A magic wand of all things and he’s shaking.

Honestly, we were a bit glad when the rainbowdrinker killed him.


End file.
